The Root Slam presents an all Black Latinx book release celebrating The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext. Featuring performances by Elizabeth Acevedo, Nicole Sealey, John Murillo, Julian Randall, and Jennifer Falú and co-hosted by Gabriel Cortez and Tianna Bratcher.
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ELIZABETH ACEVEDO is a New York Times bestselling author of The Poet X, With the Fire on High, and Clap When You Land. Her critically-acclaimed debut novel, The Poet X, won the 2018 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. She is also the recipient of the Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Fiction, the CILIP Carnegie Medal, and the Boston Globe-Hornbook Award. She is a National Poetry Slam Champion, and resides in Washington, DC with her love.
NICOLE SEALEY: Born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Apopka, Florida, Nicole Sealey is the author of Ordinary Beast, finalist for the PEN Open Book and Hurston/Wright Legacy Awards, and The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named, winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Formerly the Executive Director at Cave Canem Foundation, she is concurrently a Visiting Poet at City College of New York and Syracuse University.
JOHN MURILLO is the author of the poetry collections, Up Jump the Boogie (Cypher 2010, Four Way 2020), finalist for both the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the Pen Open Book Award, and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (forthcoming from Four Way Books 2020). He is an assistant professor of English at Wesleyan University and also teaches in the low residency MFA program at Sierra Nevada College.
JULIAN RANDALL is a Living Queer Black poet from Chicago. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, CantoMundo, Callaloo, BOAAT and the Watering Hole. Julian is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. He is the winner of the 2019 Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award from the Publishing Triangle. He talks a lot about poems and other things on Twitter at @JulianThePoet.
JENNIFER FALU's passion for creative expression through poetry is the foundation of her professional and personal life. She is a celebrated performance artist throughout NYC and across the country. As a member of the 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2014 Nuyorican Poets Café Slam Teams, she became the top female poet of the year in 2006, and ranked 3rd in both 2009 and 2012 and was 1/4 of the Tri-State area's first All-Female Poetry Slam Team. As a performer, Falú has shared the stage with Jennifer Holliday and Patti LaBelle. She made her film debut in the movie, “Mania Days” alongside Katie Holmes, as well as the Rza directed "Love, Beats, Rhymes”, alongside Jill Scott and Common, where she is credited as a writer. Connect with Jennifer Falú on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter or via email at Jennifer.falu@gmail.com
TIANNA BRATCHER is a Queer, Black, woman, sister, and auntie originally from Anchorage, Alaska now residing in Oakland, California. The 2016 winner of Best Love poem at Collegiate Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI), placed 5th at the National Poetry Slam 2017 & and placed 7th in the world at the Women Of The World Poetry Slam (WOWPS) 2020. Her work centers reclamation of the body, Black girl/womanhood, healing through generational trauma and shaking ass. Tianna is a twerk influencer, Steven Universe lover and spends much of her free time admiring trees.
GABRIEL CORTEZ is a Black biracial poet, educator, and organizer of Panamanian descent. His work has appeared in The New York Times, National Public Radio, Huffington Post, The Rumpus, and The Breakbeat Poets Anthology Volume 4. Gabriel is a member of the artist collective, Ghostlines, and co-founder of The Root Slam, an award-winning poetry venue dedicated to inclusivity, justice, and artistic growth, as well as Write Home. Gabriel currently works as Acting Program Director at Youth Speaks, one of the world’s leading presenters of spoken word performance, education, and youth development programs. For more on Gabriel, visit GabrielMCortez.com
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The mission of The Root Slam is to create an inclusive, socially just space to promote the artistic growth of the Bay Area poetry community. We are guided by values centering the voices of Black, indigenous, and people of color artists; queer, trans, gender non-conforming, and women poets; working class/low-income, disabled, im/migrant and undocumented folks.
For more, follow @TheRootSlam on Facebook, IG, and Twitter
www.RootSlam.org
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